Title: The Stranger: A Story of Romance and Intrigue
Author: Eleanor Lee Gustaw
Publisher: Toplink Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 9781949502251
Pages: 396
Genre: Romance
Reviewed by: Liz Konkel
Hollywood Book Review
The Stranger: A Story of Romance and Intrigue is a story of love and family, weaving lessons of faith and hope. Thea and Gene Ashton’s love can overcome anything, and their future is looking brighter than ever. Gene is determined to find his wife after a tragedy in their past drove her away. A book of their love story is the key he needs to get her to remember their life together. After their passionate reunion, they pick up where they left off and follow God’s plans for their lives while raising their children to make a better tomorrow. Their children find themselves on the same path as their parents to becoming cops while the journey of this family’s lives explore the deeper meaning of love and hope.
A simple stranger reveals a passionate love as Thea discovers the manuscript she’s reading is her own love story. Author Eleanor Lee Gustaw’s writing style is often poetic and sets up lovely descriptions. The story focuses on two people with a tense past putting everything behind them as they take a second chance at love and find forgiveness. Through their relationship is an exploration of love and new beginnings as they face life lessons in faith and family as their lives together is grounded and almost idealistic with even the potential tragedies turning into blessings.
Gustaw includes light layers of mystery through the use of their positions as cops, so criminal investigations do show up and eventually becomes a family affair when their children follow in their footsteps, but it’s never the central focus. The family and the blessings they find in their lives remain at the heart of the story from beginning to end. Gustaw steadily journeys through time, growing the children into adults with families of their own. Instead of telling a specific arc of story, Gustaw goes through significant events in their lives over a large quantity of time which provides a strong biographical tone. Other characters have important roles in the Ashton’s lives but their presence remain as supporting ones as the story stays rooted to Thea’s first person perspective. These characters provide a way to disrupt the happiness of the Ashton’s lives with reality but it never lasts long before it ventures back into the feel-good storyline.
The story is emotional and touches upon some serious situations, but it never gets gritty or intense, always remaining light and genuine. The Stranger is an uplifting read with a strong sense of faith and a look at the blessings in life as this family grows and changes throughout the years. Gustaw provides several sweet moments for this family with a majority spent on the children growing and becoming adults. The time with the children when they’re young focuses on their wonder at life and the life lessons Thea and Gene teach them about right and wrong. Gustaw blends elements of mystery, family, love, and faith, weaving these elements through the relationship of Thea and Gene starting with their reunion. The Stranger has religious themes provided throughout in a journey of romance, love, faith, and family. A lovely story about finding the blessings in life through family and love that also deals with loss and hardships with the more important focus on finding strength in God and in each other.